Macroeconomics: an Introduction

Chapter 1

An Overview of Economics
Internet Edition 2009 (as of Dec. 12, 2008)
Copyright © 2005-2009 by Charles R. Nelson
All rights reserved.
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Outline

Preview

1.1 What are “the Economy” and “Economics”?

The Standard of Living
Income Inequality
The Productivity of Labor
Economic Growth

1.2 The Four Sectors of the Economy

Business
Households
Government
The Rest-of-the-World

1.3 What is Microeconomics?

1.4 What is Macroeconomics?

Credit Crisis of 2008 and Recession Now!
The Twin Deficits: International Trade and the Federal Budget.
The Challenge of Globalization
Social Security and Medicare; Will They Impoverish the Young?
Will We Have Inflation, Recession, or Both?

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Preview
Economics is one of the oldest and most influential of intellectual
disciplines. Practically all of the great thinkers, from Aristotle to Einstein,
have tried their hand at it, and the great economists like Adam Smith,
Thomas Malthus, David Ricardo, John Maynard Keynes and Milton
Friedman rank among the most influential minds in our history. The
economic paradigm permeates our thinking about practically every area
of human activity. Military analysts talk in terms of “assets” and “trade-
offs” while theologians quote economic statistics. Adam Smith’s ideas
about competition had a strong influence on Charles Darwin’s study of
biology. Insect colonies are said to “invest” in nest building. Our thinking
about politics and social behavior draws heavily on ideas about
incentives, trading, and maximization that come from economics.
The word economics comes from ancient Greece (like so many words
and important ideas) when an “economist” was the manager of an estate.
Those very practical economists grappled with all the basic problems of
economic decision-making facing a modern executive today. What is the
optimal mix of crops? How much to invest in new equipment? or
irrigation instead? Should we sell our grain now, or wait until prices
improve? Modern economics returns the compliment by providing the
foundations of business administration today. Successful executives
have often told the author that the principles they draw on every day in
making decisions are those that they learned in their first courses in
economics. Good reason to “invest” in learning the foundations of
economic analysis!

1.1 What are the “Economy” and “Economics”?

Every society must provide goods and services for the welfare of its
citizens. The economy consists of all of the activities involved in the
production and distribution of these goods and services.
Economics, as the study of the economy, seeks to address three basic
questions:

• Are there fundamental principles that help us understand how

the economy works?

• How well does the economy perform in achieving social

objectives?

• How would changes in laws or political institutions affect the

performance of the economy?

The production and distribution of goods and services requires the

use of economic resources called factors of production. They may be
thought of as falling into one of four categories:

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• Land
This includes not only territory but all of the natural resources, such
as minerals and fossil fuels, which the economy is endowed with.

• Labor
This refers to the services of human beings who bring not only their
time and effort to the economy but also their skills.

• Capital
This consists of the human-made tools used in the economy:
machinery, computers, buildings, vehicles, and transportation systems.
These tools of production are called capital goods.

• Entrepreneurship
This is the bringing together of land, labor, and capital into productive
units. For example, when Henry Ford organized the mass production of
automobiles early in this century, he brought labor and capital together
in a new way on an assembly line, bringing the cost of an automobile
down to within the reach of the average American. Bill Gates recognized
the potential of the personal computer when most thought it was simply
a hobby toy, and the result is one of the most valuable companies in the
world today, and one of the most important industries of our time.

How do we measure the success of an economy? By the standard of

living that it delivers.

The Standard of Living

By the standard of living we mean not only the goods and services
we consume, but also other aspects of the quality of life including health,
leisure time, and environmental amenities. Welfare is another word that
also conveys the idea of well-being. But it is not easy to measure the
standard of living of a population in quantitative terms. We care not just
about the quantity of goods and services but also their quality, and that
can be difficult to measure. Think of the remarkable improvements in the
quality of electronic devices, and in the effectiveness and safety of
medical services; but how to quantify that? We also are to measure
changes in the amount of leisure time, and the historical trend is
towards more leisure. While the work-week has remained around 40
hours in the U.S. in Europe it is considerably less than that and
vacations are also much longer there. These differences have to be taken
into account in making standard of living comparisons between the two.
The environment gets increasing attention as we become more aware
of the negative effects of our activities on nature and how that affects our
own welfare. Affluent societies have both the greatest impact on the
environment and also the greatest ability to mitigate that impact. It is
very difficult to measure environmental impact, nor is it easy to get

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agreement on how it should be valued, but there is no doubt that it will
occupy increasing attention in the years ahead.

Income Inequality
In measuring the standard of living we are concerned not simply with
the average level of consumption or income, but also its distribution
among households. Which society enjoys a higher standard of living, one
with a higher average income but greater inequality, or one with a lower
average income but less inequality? The answer is ultimately a value-
based judgement, but most people would probably say that there is a
trade-off between level and inequality, so the answer depends on how
large the differences are. In recent years there has been considerable
discussion about the effect of the economic boom of the past 20 years on
income distribution; the share of total income going to the highest
income groups increased dramatically. Evidently, the boom raised both
the average income and the inequality of distribution. Is it better to have
a higher average even if it means greater inequality? Your answer might
depend on whether the greater inequality is only temporary, related to
the now-faded financial boom, or is it a long term trend? An economy
with extremely unequal household consumption levels cannot be
considered completely successful, but we do not expect a successful
economy to produce exact equality either.

The Productivity of Labor

Clearly, our standard of living depends on our opportunities to
consume, and that depends on our ability to produce. The productivity
of labor is the amount of goods and services produced per hour of labor
input. Higher productivity makes possible a higher standard of living
because it allows society to increase the consumption of goods and
services, or leisure, or environmental quality, or all three.
The productivity of labor is determined by the amount of land and
capital available per worker, the level of technology embodied in that
capital, the skills of the workers who use it, and the creativity of its
entrepreneurs. Productivity can be increased by producing more capital
goods, by advancing technology through research and development, and
by improving skills through education and training. Affluent societies are
notable for the quantity, quality, and technological advancement of their
capital goods and for the high level of skills and education of their
citizens. In contrast, poor societies are marked by the paucity of both
capital and skills.

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Economic Growth
The process of economic growth, a continuing increase in the
standard of living that persists over decades, can only come from growth
in the productivity of labor. An increase in the standard of living
requires, in turn, that a society devote a portion of its economic output to
research and development of new technologies, to education and training
of workers, and to the production of new capital goods. This can only
happen if society is willing to forgo some immediate consumption of
goods and services, freeing a portion of the current output of the
economy for investment in future growth. It is for this reason that the
very low savings rate in the U.S. has been a matter of concern for our
future welfare.

Exercises 1.1
A. Discuss the extent to which society can change each of the four
factors of production. Give some examples.
B. Education is sometimes referred to as “human capital.” In what
sense is education like capital goods?
C. Compare briefly the standard of living in Switzerland and in India.
Trace the difference to the productivity of labor, and hence to differences
in the quantity and quality of the factors of production present in the two
countries. Alternatively, pick two contrasting countries of your choice.
D. What are some options that a country has if it wishes to raise its
standard of living? Can we say that people are happier in a country with
a higher standard of living?

1.2 The Four Sectors of the Economy

Modern complex economies involve the interactions of large numbers
of people and organizations. These economic agents fall into one of three
categories: business, households, government, and the rest-of-the-world.
Economists find it useful to think of these groupings as sectors of the
economy. Let's look at each of these sectors in turn:

Business
The business sector is where production takes place in the economy.
The individual agents making up the business sector are called firms.
These are the organizations within which entrepreneurship brings
together land, labor and capital for the production of goods or services.
Economies in which firms are generally owned by private individuals
rather than by governments are called capitalist or private enterprise
economies. These include almost all the countries in the world today.
A firm may be as small as one individual. An example is a plumber
with a truck and tools whose income is whatever is left over from sales
after paying expenses. These one-owner firms are called individual

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proprietorships. A large firm is typically a corporation which is a legal
entity in itself, having many of the same rights and privileges under law
as does a person. The corporation purchases factors of production and
receives payment from buyers of its output. The difference between its
sales revenue and its costs of production is its profit or earnings. A
corporation purchases capital goods, plant and equipment, from earning
profits, borrowing from lenders, and selling shares in the ownership of
the corporation. The latter is called stock.
The owners of a corporation are called shareholders. A large firm
typically has many shareholders, some of which are other firms. Firms
which primarily invest in other firms are called financial intermediaries.
Shareholders play no direct role in the running of the firm, rather they
are represented by a board of directors who are elected by shareholders
on a one vote per share basis. Shareholders are not liable, in general, for
the debts of the corporation. The term "Ltd." used in the names of
corporations in Britain refers to the limited liability of the shareholders.
The entrepreneurial input to the corporation is often provided by
salaried managers who may not even be shareholders. These managers
are appointed by the directors as officers of the corporation who are then
legally empowered to conduct its business. A primary responsibility of
the directors of a corporation is the hiring and oversight of the officers.

Households
Those are us, the family units that make up society. We consume the
goods and services produced by the economy. It is for our benefit that
the economy exists.
The household sector provides the labor used in production, receiving
payment of wages and salaries in return. Households also provide
financial capital to the business sector which includes loans to firms,
direct ownership, or the purchase of shares. Households may invest
directly in firms by purchasing their stock or bonds, but more typically
households invest indirectly through financial intermediaries such as
pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and mutual funds.
Households own the firms and have claim to all the income produced
by the business sector, including wages, interest, and profits.

Government
We can think of government as having four basic economic functions:
First, it establishes the legal framework within which the economy
operates. Economists sometimes refer to this framework as the rules of
the game. A complex body of commercial law clarifies relations between
buyers and sellers, employers and employees, and parties involved in
private contracts.
The corporation, an essential building block of modern economies, is
a creation of the law. It was the development of the limited liability

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corporation in Britain during the industrial revolution that made possible
the formation of very large firms co-owned by many individuals. Such
enterprises could not exist without the assurance that individual
shareholders are not personally liable for the actions of the corporation.
Property rights are not unconditional but rather are defined by laws
which establish the privileges, obligations, and limitations of ownership.
For example, city government decides what the owner of a city lot can
and cannot do with it. The owner of a residence is entitled to live in it,
rent it to someone else to live in, or sell it, but usually is prevented by
zoning laws from tearing down the house and putting in a fast food
restaurant or a rifle range. Regulations control entry into certain
economic activities such as banking or medicine, restrict what firms can
say in their ads, and even prohibit sale of goods deemed not in the public
interest.
Second, taxes are collected by government from households and firms.
The U.S. federal government collects most of its revenue from individual
income taxes. It also taxes corporate profits and estates, levies excise
taxes on the value of certain goods and tariffs on imports from abroad,
and it collects payroll taxes. State governments collect sales taxes on
retail purchases and/or income taxes on both individuals and
corporations. County and municipal governments levy a tax on the value
of real estate property, and often also participate in sales tax or income
tax revenues.
What activities are taxed, and how heavily, gives government many
levers with which to encourage or discourage specific economic activities.
The tax on gasoline is cents per gallon in the U.S. and dollars per gallon
in Europe. The high cost of fuel creates an incentive that results in cars
in Europe being much smaller and less powerful than in the U.S. and
less driving. This has far reaching effects on the environment and the
greater use of public transportation.
Third, government spends some of these tax revenues to provide goods
and services through agencies that operate much like firms, for example
the National Park Service which produces recreation and the U.S. Navy
which produces national defense. These firms are engaged in the
production of public goods, ones we consume as a society rather than as
individuals. The prime example is national defense which cannot be
provided to one individual without providing it to others. Some goods
have both private and public dimensions. For example, education
benefits not only the individual who is educated but society as a whole,
so it is not surprising that government plays a large but not exclusive
role in education.
In socialist economies, government operates a wider range of firms. In
the former Soviet Union, all firms were under government ownership.
Advocates of socialism contended that government ownership would lead
to greater welfare, claiming that government is more responsive to the
needs of society, and kinder to employees, than the market. These ideas

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were very popular in Europe following World War II, and large sectors of
those economies were "nationalized" under government ownership or
control. The wave of "privatization" of industry in Europe after the failure
of the Soviet Union reflected the realization that socialism failed to deliver
on those rosy promises. The influence of socialist ideas is evident today
in the major role of the governments in most industrialized countries in
basic health care and a “safety net” of income support programs.
The allocation of government spending among alternatives also
influences how firms and households allocate their private resources. For
example, police protection is thought of as a public good, but the level of
police protection will affect whether the Jones family installs a burglar
alarm. And whether government builds freeways or subways affects
private choices among alternative forms of transportation.
Fourth, government also makes transfer payments to those who are
entitled to receive them under the law. For example, people qualify to
receive Social Security benefits on the basis of age or disability. Farm
subsidies are paid by the U.S. government to firms which qualify by
engaging in certain farming activities.
Transfer payments redistribute income among groups in society, and
are a larger part of the total expenditures of the federal government than
is the purchase of goods and services including defense. The distribution
of income between the young and the old in the U.S. has been
substantially altered by the growth in Social Security benefits received
primarily by the elderly and the corresponding increase in Social Security
taxes paid primarily by the young. Transfer payments also affect private
decisions. For example, the increase in the number of people choosing
earlier retirement is surely related to the increase in the level of Social
Security benefits as well as the penalties which the rules put on
continued work by those qualifying for old age benefits.
We tend to focus on the federal government in thinking about the role
of government in the economy, but state and local governments also play
important roles in all four functions of government. Economists refer to
governments at all levels as the public sector.

The Rest-of-the-World
We naturally focus on the economy of our nation because government
plays an important role in economic life and because economic
interactions are usually concentrated within political borders. However,
the movement of goods and services as well as factors of productions
across national borders is also an important aspect of economic activity.
U.S. households consume stereos made in Asia and US firms purchase
machine tools produced in Europe. Foreign airlines fly airplanes made in
the U.S. and serve their passengers food exported from the U.S.
International trade now comprises about 10% of our national economy
and is growing rapidly. Growth in trade has been accelerated by the
removal of barriers under the North American Free Trade Agreement

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(NAFTA), and the 1994 round of the General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs (GATT) lowered barriers to trade around the world.
Think of the Rest-of-the-World, or ROW, as a fourth sector of the
economy. In addition to trading with the ROW, American firms,
government, and households also borrow from the ROW and lend to it.
Japanese, Chinese, and European investors are major lenders to both
firms and government in the U.S., while American firms and households
also have made large investments in Europe and Asia.

Exercises 1.2
A. Indicate which of the four factors of production each of the
following is an example of: 1) a Macintosh™ computer, 2) an electronics
engineer, 3) a Boeing 767™, 4) crude petroleum, 5) the Empire State
Building, 6) the lot it sits on, 7) Bill Gates, 8) college graduates.
B. Name one or more prominent entrepreneur of today and explain
briefly what this person has done.
C. Categorize the following by economic sector: 1) the Hernandez
family, 2) the Ford Motor Company, 3) the State of California, 4) the
University of California, 5) the Durn-Good Grocery, 6) Toyota Motors,
Ltd.
D. Which of the functions of government in the economy is
represented by the following: 1) Aid to Families of Dependent Children, 2)
the Federal Aviation Administration, 3) truth-in-advertising laws, 4) state
sales tax, 5) the Washington State Ferry System, 6) Small Claims Court.
E. Russia attempted to convert from a centrally planned economy
under Soviet Communism to a largely private enterprise economy. What
basic function of government in a private enterprise economy was lacking
in Soviet Russia and was needed before a private enterprise economy
could function? Has the conversion succeeded? Why?

1.3 What is Microeconomics?

It is already apparent from this brief overview that the subject of
economics is a very broad one. Just as the study of the physical world is
divided into fields such as physics and chemistry, economics is likewise
divided into fields comprised of closely related topics. The two major
fields of economics are micro economics and macro economics. Since the
second is the subject of this book, let's take a minute to review what
microeconomics is about.
Microeconomics is the study of how markets function. For example,
how do the prices of airline tickets and the frequency of service to various
airports get determined in the US economy? An airline decides whether
to raise or lower fares, whether to add a flights between LA and Chicago,
and whether to put a new 747 in service on the San Francisco to
Honolulu route. Travelers respond by buying more or fewer trips. The

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airline's objective is to maximize profits, constrained by the rules of the
game established and enforced by government. Travelers, in turn, hope
to buy transportation at the lowest possible price with the best possible
convenience and comfort.
The diffuse but very real arena in which such firms and their
customers interact is called the marketplace. Physically, the marketplace
for airline tickets is all the ticket counters and travel agencies where
transactions take place. Conceptually, the market encompasses all the
interactions between the economic agents that produce and consume air
travel.
Prior to the late 1970's the prices of airline tickets, as well as the
routes and airline could fly, were set by the federal government as a part
of the regulation of air travel. Largely due to the urging of economists,
the airline ticket market was deregulated so that airlines are now free to
raise or lower fares and alter service to airports as they see it to be to
their advantage to do so. Advocates of deregulation contended that
freeing the air travel market would result in a more efficient allocation of
resources within the airline industry, making society as a whole better
off. The term "resources" here means the factors of production, not just
natural resources. The analysis of airline deregulation, the arguments for
and against it, as well appraising its success or failure to date, are
interesting and important problems in microeconomics.
In private enterprise economies it is primarily in the marketplace that
the three fundamental economic decisions are made:

1. What will be produced?

2. How will it be produced?
3. Who will consume it?

For example, it is in the marketplace that society decides how many

tennis rackets will be produced, whether they will be made in Ohio or in
Taiwan, and which consumers will buy them.
It was the remarkable insight of Adam Smith, pondering the workings
of the British economy two centuries ago, that products and services are
provided for the benefit of society mainly as a result of the pursuit of self
interest by producers and consumers interacting in the marketplace
rather than because of their good intentions. Producers who supply what
consumers demand are rewarded with higher profits, while those who do
not are punished for wasting society's valuable land, labor and capital
resources by suffering losses. In a famous passage in his book The
Wealth of Nations, Smith wrote:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or

the baker that we expect our dinner,
but from their regard to their own interest."

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 Adam Smith realized that the market provides incentives for agents to
behave in ways that generally improve economic welfare.
Microeconomists are also interested in studying ways in which
markets fail to provide the proper incentives to allocate resources. This
happens when an economic activity produces consequences for agents
that are not a party to that activity. An example of such an externality is
the air pollution. Unless there is a way to make agents pay for producing
pollutants, they will tend to produce more of it than is good for society.
The design and cost-effectiveness of taxes and regulations to mitigate
externalities is an important issue in microeconomics.
A supplement entitled Review of the Principles of Microeconomics offers
an introduction for students who have not encountered ‘Micro” before
and for those who have taken a prior course but wish to get a firmer
grasp of basic microeconomic principles, particularly those that will be
used in this book.

Exercises 1.3
A. What are the three fundamental decisions that have to be made in
any economic system? Discuss what those decisions are in the context
of trips between San Francisco and Hong Kong. How has technology
changed the outcomes of those decisions during the last half century?
B. Express in your own words Adam Smith's idea of what makes a
private enterprise economy work.
C. Federal law requires that electric generating stations install
scrubbers on their exhaust stacks to reduce emissions of certain
compounds. Discuss why utilities might not install these scrubbers on
their own, and how you might approach the question of whether such
scrubbers should be required by law.

1.4 What is Macroeconomics?

Macroeconomics focuses on trying to understand events that affect the
whole economy. In the fall of 2000 and continuing through the fall of
2001 there was the U.S. experienced a decline in sales, production, and
employment that affected most firms and industries. A few industries,
notably housing construction, continued to do well. This kind of wide-
spread decline in economic activity, when it lasts for more than six
months, is called a recession.
Since recessions are felt throughout the economy, it seems unlikely
that the explanation for a recession will be found in the microeconomics
of individual markets. The causes of recession must involve forces that
have widespread influence on economic activity. Nor are these events
confined to just one economy; recent U.S. recessions have put a damper
on economic activity around the globe – a symptom of globalization.

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 What causes recessions? Should the government do something about
it? If so, what can it do? What forces bring a recession to an end,
allowing resumption of normal levels of sales, employment and
production?
Here is another example of a problem in macroeconomics. In the late
1970s the price of practically every good and service in the US economy
rose very rapidly, at a rate of about 15% per year. A pervasive and
persistent rise in prices is called inflation. Since inflation reflects price
changes that are widespread across many different industries it seems
clear that the explanation for inflation must lie with factors affecting the
entire economy. In recent years inflation has not been a major problem
in the U.S. economy, but 2006 saw a modest revival that has some
economists concerned. Why did inflation get out of control in the late
1970s, and what should be done if it speeds up again?
Recession and inflation are central problems in macroeconomics.
The division of economics between microeconomics and
macroeconomics is not a precise one, and the analytic tools of each are
important in understanding the other. For example, the computer
industry is of growing importance to the economy, but the study of the
economics of that industry belongs in the domain of microeconomics.
On the other hand, although banking is also an industry, its influence on
the economy is so pervasive that the study of banking is usually
considered part of macroeconomics. Nevertheless, the macroeconomist
studying banking will make use of the analytical tools of
microeconomics, and the microeconomist studying the computer
industry will be concerned with the impact on the industry of
macroeconomic events such as recession and inflation.
The topics which economists usually group under the heading of
macroeconomics include the following:

• The Measurement of National Income

• The Relationship Between Savings and Investment

• The Cost of Living and Inflation

• Interest Rates and What Influences Them

• Recession, Unemployment, and Economic Growth

• Money and Banks

• The Federal Reserve System and Monetary Policy

• Government Taxation, Spending, and Fiscal Policy

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• International Trade and Exchange Rates

Macroeconomic issues are the subject of major news coverage by the

media because they affect all of us. They are usually the most hotly
debated issues of Presidential campaigns. Candidate Bill Clinton’s
mantra was: "It's the economy, stupid!" Here are some of the major
macroeconomic issues that are receiving a lot of attention:

The Financial Crisis of 2008 and Recession Now.

Bank failures, collapse of old and storied Wall Street investment
firms, astronomical losses in hedge funds, falling house prices, rapidly
rising lay-offs, and unsold goods of all kinds – that is the economic
reality of 2008! At this writing it is clear that we have entered one of the
most severe recessions since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the
future looks shaky indeed. The change of administrations and a
Congress that seems unable to act decisively add to the feeling of unease.
How could major banks, household name brands that were solid and
expanding only a year ago, suddenly experience unsustainable depositor
withdrawals? Why has the price of houses fallen around 20% in one year,
after decades of almost relentless increase? How could the stock market
lose about 40% of its value in only several months? These are among the
troubling and far from resolved questions we will try to grapple with!

The Twin Deficits: International Trade and the Federal Budget.

When the amount we earn from exports falls short of the amount we
spend on imports then there is a trade deficit. In 1980 the value of goods
exported by the US was $25 billion less than the value of the goods we
imported. By 1990 the US trade deficit had swollen to $80 billion. And
currently it is around $400 billion! That is about one billion dollars every
day. This seemingly relentless widening of the trade deficit to an
astonishing level is a source of concern to many, and yet its causes and
consequences may be far different from what most imagine.
The amount by which federal spending exceeds tax revenues is called
the federal budget deficit. In 1980 the federal government spent $74
billion more than it collected in taxes. By 1990 the federal deficit had
widened to $220 billion. The prospect of continuing budget deficits
motivated a major tax increase by the Clinton administration in 1993.
That, combined with a long and vigorous economic expansion eliminated
the budget deficit at the end of the 1990s, and President George W. Bush
successfully lobbied congress for a tax cut. But the budget is again
falling into deficit, $400+ billion for 2008!
Could there be a connection between these “twin” deficits? Both
emerged alarmingly in the 1980s. Is the similarity in their timing and
size coincidental? Are they harmful to the economy? What caused them,
and are their causes related? What should we do about them, if
anything?

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The Challenge of Globalization
After World War II, US business faced little competition from abroad.
Germany and Japan were struggling to rebuild and Great Britain was in
the process of losing its empire. The only imported car of note in the
1950s was the VW beetle, admired for its simplicity and eccentricity, but
no real threat to US competitors. General Motors was the largest
industrial corporation in the world and it could claim with some
authority that its Cadillac™ brand was “The Standard of the World.” How
things have changed!
By the late 1980s US industry faced strong competition from Europe
and Japan in many fields. Japan particularly had become an economic
powerhouse. In 1989 the biggest selling car in America was for the first
time not made by an American company. It was the Honda Accord.
Nippon Telephone and Telegraph was larger (in market value) than all US
corporations except Exxon. The seven largest banks in the world were all
Japanese! The five largest securities firms (dealing in stocks and bonds)
were also all Japanese. In 1987 Japan became the world's richest nation
with assets worth $44 trillion. The US was spending about $50 billion
more on imports from Japan each year than it earned from sales to
Japan. Japan invested these trade surplus dollars in the U.S., much in
the form of direct investment in the U.S. based subsidiaries of Japanese
corporations. Japanese investors also became major owners of real estate
and stocks and bonds in the U.S.
Then in the 1990s, Japan’s stock market took a severe tumble and its
economy entered a decade of stagnation. Meanwhile, U.S. economic
growth was strong, and American firms emerged as the leaders in the
new technologies of personal computers and telecommunications. In part
because of technological advance, competition is now on a global scale.
Nokia, the Finnish maker of mobile phones came out of nowhere to
become a leader in its field and among the 30 most valuable corporations
in the world. Nor is competition limited to manufacturing. Of the ten
largest banks in the world, only one is American. The largest is Deutsche
Bank (with assets equivalent to $700 billion) followed by a Swiss and a
Japanese bank in the next two positions. All of these banks have global
reach, offer a full range of financial services, and make use of the latest
telecommunications to knit their world-wide operations together.
In this new century China has emerged as the new player in the
international economy, with rapidly rising exports of manufactured
products, selling far more to the U.S. than it buys. Thus, China has
billions of dollars to invest in the U.S. and it has become a major
purchaser of bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury to finance the federal
budget deficit. The influx of low cost goods from China has been a factor
in holding down inflation in the U.S. and allowing Americans to consume
more. While we no longer make as many toasters, small appliances are
typically produced now in China, that country is a rich market for high

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value products we do make such as airliners. Meanwhile, India is
undergoing a somewhat similar transformation and even exports services
to the U.S. in the form of telephone help lines that make use of Indians’
command of the English language and high level of technical training.
What should be our response to globalization? Do we have any choice
but to participate? Or should we try to limit our exposure to international
competition and foreign ownership in the U.S.? Public sentiment was
once strong for Congress to take action to protect U.S. industry from
Japanese competition, but that competition proved to be the stimulus for
a new era of change. Now our officials scold Japan that it is doing too
little to encourage growth! Concern has now shifted to China and India.
Some observers worry about the impact of globalization on third-world
countries where economic development is happening at a dizzying pace,
and on the labor market in the U.S. which now is thrown open to world
competition. In this debate, economists are almost always a voice for free
trade and open world markets. The issues are complex and will play an
important role in debate on public policy in the decades ahead.

Social Security and Medicare; Will They Impoverish the Young?

Benefits for the aged account for 27% of federal spending but the
elderly constitute only 12% of the population. The Social Security trust
fund is now in surplus because the “baby-boomers,” those born between
1945 and 1965) are in their peak earning years and they are a very large
age cohort. But this favorable balance will be reversed as the boomer
retire over the next couple of decades.
Medicare benefits for the elderly have proved to be about ten times as
costly as was projected when the program started in 1965; the actual
expenditure now is over $200 billion per year. The taxes that fund Social
Security and Medicare are now the greatest tax burden on many lower
income young families.
Should Social Security taxes be cut now to reduce the tax burden on
young wage earners, or should the surplus be allowed to accumulate to
cover the anticipated deficit ahead? Is the Social Security system, as it is
now designed, fair to both young and old? Should Medicare benefits be
broadened? Should they be subject to a minimum income requirement?
These and other vexing questions will figure in public debate for coming
decades.

Will We Have Inflation, Recession, or Both?

Two things that are we do not want to see in our economy are
inflation and recession. Inflation seems nice at first, people see their
incomes rise, their houses become more valuable, but after a while they
realize that prices of things they buy have risen too. And inflation makes
it hard for us to use prices to judge the value of goods and services
because the ‘yardstick’ we are using is constantly shrinking. Recession is
bad because it means few jobs, loss of income for many, and slow growth

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for almost all. Sometimes we are unlucky enough to have both, as in the
1970’s when soaring oil prices and the cost of just about everything was
accompanied by slow growth and then the ‘double dip’ recessions of the
early 1980s. How is the U.S. economy doing in the new century?
The 1990s turned out to be a decade of sustained growth and low
inflation, to say nothing of a soaring stock market powered by the ‘dot-
com’ boom. Concern lingered that inflation would rebound rapidly if the
economy continued to expand. But the Federal Reserve, known
affectionately as "the Fed," was able to perform a delicate balancing act
between inflation and recession and keep the economy on track through
the end of the decade. One of the objectives of this book is to understand
how they did that.
The boom of the late 1990’s gave way in 2000 to a “bear” stock market
and a mild recession, compounded by the shock of 9-11. Two of the
microeconomic underpinnings of the boom, dot-com and telecom,
experienced the slump that has followed revolutionary innovations of the
past. New technology stimulates a frenetic pace of capital investment in
new equipment and infrastructure. Stocks of companies in the new
industries soar. After a while it becomes clear that the capacity that has
been built is more than adequate – witness the glut of optical fiber - and
the ensuing slump in investment spending leads to recession. Similar
episodes were the railroad boom following the Civil War and the auto
boom of the 1920’s. As in the past, recession gave way to renewed
economic growth, with help from the Fed in the shape of extremely low
interest rates (how they control interest rates if one of the themes of this
book) engineered by its legendary Chairman, Alan Greenspan.
Many hoped that recession and inflation had been banished from our
world in the new millennium. The “New Economy” was a popular slogan
on Wall Street and in Washington D.C. in the late 1990’s. The
productivity of labor was growing at an unprecedented rate, it was said,
so the old rules just didn’t apply any more. The Fed was would protect us
from the uncertainties of economic life, so the story went.
But as we look ahead to 2007 and beyond it is clear that many
uncertainties remain, and the threats of recession and inflation are far
from banished from the land. Greenspan has retired, replaced by Ben
Bernanke, a brilliant economist and Princeton professor who is
nevertheless a rookie in Washington politics. War in Iraq is raising the
federal budget deficit again and fears of more to come. Oil prices have
soared, reviving a ghost of the 1970s. Economics growth has cooled down
and inflation has perked up. Stagflation, a lack of economic growth
combined with inflation, is a 1970s buzzword again being bandied about.

As you can see, there is no lack of macroeconomic issues to concern

us! They occupy the news media every day, and provide a never-ending
drama featuring all the emotions of a good soap opera: hope, fear, greed,
success and failure (OK, maybe one or two emotions are missing). People

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are interested in macroeconomic issues precisely because they touch the
lives of every one of us. Politicians understand that their chances for
election hinge on peoples' perception of the health of the macroeconomy.
As citizens we all need to understand as much as we can about its
workings, and that understanding may well be the key factor to coping
with the uncertainties and opportunities that the economy presents to
each of us.

Exercises 1.4
A. Indicate whether each of the following topics falls under the
umbrella of microeconomics or macroeconomics.
1) the effect of protecting the spotted owl on the price of lumber,
2) causes of the decline in inflation during the 1990's,
3) the persistent deficit in our trade with Japan,
4) effect of a proposed increase in the gas tax on demand,
5) the impact of a change in the exchange rate between the German
Mark and the US dollar on employment in the US and Germany,
6) a cost-benefit analysis of federal exhaust emission standards.
B. Give brief and perhaps tentative responses to some of the
macroeconomic issues discussed in this section. What are some other
issues that feature prominently in the news currently? Which of these
issues is of greatest importance to you? Briefly, why?

END.

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